


The Drifter

by perseajackson



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: KotOR, Kotor 2 - Freeform, Other, gives some backstory for her personality a bit, jedi exile - Freeform, just chill and lowkey, this is just a moment explaining how my jedi got onto the harbinger in the first place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25929784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perseajackson/pseuds/perseajackson
Summary: “I have no purpose, boss. It doesn’t bother me,” she says honestly, getting up to get herself a drink and to try to move away from Gruk’s pensive eyes as he eats his food. “I used to have a life, before the Mandalorian wars, but that’s in the past. And I only focus on the present now.”“You lost everything to the wars then, huh?” Gruk assumes, and Lora clenches her water bottle tight.She shakes her head. “It’s not that simple,” she says, and in her mind she bitterly whispers,Everything was taken from me.///Lora Nattaj was exiled from the Jedi Order for her involvement with the Mandalorian wars eight years ago. During her exile, she finds solitude among strangers, going from job to job, crew to crew, doing whatever gets her credits to survive long enough to see the next day, finding no purpose but simply existing.As she's looking for her next place to move on to, a representative from a ship called the Harbinger approaches her about a freelance job on Telos IV. She tends to steer clear from anywhere involved with the Republic, but at this point, what does she really have to lose?
Kudos: 5





	The Drifter

Lora trudges out of her shared cabin, ignoring the four other sleeping crewmates around the room, and makes her way to the fresher. She shuts and locks the door, sighing to herself and grimacing when she turns to see her reflection. She sees the same shadow that has stared back at her every time she catches her reflection for the last eight years. Dark circles ghost beneath tired, olive-green eyes, and her gaze flits across the various scars and piercings decorating her appearance as her hands go up to pull her hair into a simple, familiar ponytail. The drunken cut she’d administered months ago has finally grown out to a length where she could trim it evenly again. She’d have to do that soon; the length now just dusted past her shoulders, and it was making her antsy.

She silently brushes her teeth and uses the fresher to clean herself up a bit before going to find something to eat for breakfast- though, when she thinks about it, she has no idea if it was technically even breakfast time.

The ship is mostly quiet, but she hears noise in the galley. Great.

As she’d suspected, her current captain, a transdosian named Gruk, is sorting out a meal for himself, making no attempt to respect the rest of his crew that was currently still snoozing down the hall. She has no idea _what_ he was making, but he seems satisfied with his process, and he appears to be in a good mood when he looks over to greet her as she enters the galley. 

“Lora, Lora,” he says. “You surprise me yet again! After the night you had, I would’ve pegged you to be one of the later sleepers.”

She shrugs, echoes of the nightmares that’d brought her back to the waking world too soon dusting the back of her brain, and she goes to get herself something simple to eat. “You know I hold my own better than that, Gruk,” she says, settling on some pastry bread and hopping up to sit on the edge of the booth table.

“I’m pretty sure you drank Leegan’s weight in booze, little girl,” Gruk says, then laughs and seemingly wraps up his cooking escapade. “Have you no weakness?”

“Kath hound fur gives me a rash if I touch it,” she says, obliging to hop off the table and settle into the booth when he walks over and gestures for her to do so. “But that’s about it, other than regular things all humans are weak to, like decapitation and junk."

Gruk laughs again and points his fork at her with a grin that makes her stomach churn uncomfortably. “You’re somethin’ else, Lora Lora. You sure you’re leaving at the next port? Could use your invulnerability for my next job.

Lora shrugs a little and chews on her pastry bread. “Gotta move on, Gruk. You’ve still got Varkaj, though. He’s twice my size, way better with a blaster rifle than me.”

“Ah, Varkaj complains too much. You complain never! Only do your job, drink with the crew, and indulge my small talk,” Gruk says, waving his hand as if to dismiss Varkaj right then, and he makes a slithering noise that nearly causes Lora to shiver. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to that little transdosian tick, and she would be happy to leave it behind, though Gruk has been one of her more preferable employers in her exile. “What do you move on for, anyway? Saving up for something? Trying to get somewhere? Running from something?”

She shakes her head and sighs, resting her chin on her fist and looking Gruk in the eyes. “Just can’t stay anywhere too long. I’m not going towards anything, not running from anything either.” She lets her eyes drop to the table and feels the familiar exhaustion settling back into her bones. “I’m just a drifter. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“You’re too young to live without any goals, kid. You ever thought about settling down?”

“I have no purpose, boss. It doesn’t bother me,” she says honestly, getting up to get herself a drink and to try to move away from Gruk’s pensive eyes as he eats his food. “I used to have a life, before the Mandalorian wars, but that’s in the past. And I only focus on the present now.”

“You lost everything to the wars then, huh?” Gruk assumes, and Lora clenches her water bottle tight.

She shakes her head. “It’s not that simple,” she says, and in her mind she bitterly whispers, _Everything was taken from me._

She can tell Gruk feels bad for her, and she easily lets the pity roll off her back. She’s used to ignoring the things people feel for her, whether positive, negative, or any mix of the two. She doesn’t care what people make of her. She doesn’t need pity, she doesn’t need people who agree with her or feel bad for her. She simply needs enough credits for food and a safe place to sleep each night, and that’s all. She knows the life she lives is an empty one. It doesn’t bother her anymore.

She doesn’t spend long at the next station. She wanders and asks around about jobs or gigs or things needing to be done, and after about a week, she’s approached by a man looking for freelance workers for some projects going on in the Telos system.

“Telos is part of the Republic still, isn’t it?” she asks the representative warily.

He looks a little nervous and says, “Well, Telos IV was destroyed during the wars, of course, and the Republic is currently invested in restoring the planet to its former beauty! So, technically _yes_ , but they sort of have their own governing force at the moment.”  
  
Lora shrugs a little and begins to make her way past the man. “I steer clear of the Republic. Sorry, man.”

“You’ll be paid handsomely for the work!” he insists, stepping in pace with her as she begins to calmly walk away. When she gives him a suspicious glance at his insistence, he gives her a nervously guilty expression and admits, “I apologize for my persistence- You were recommended to me by your previous employer, Gruk Kasska, with soaring praise. I think you would be incredibly beneficial for our freelance work.”

Her shoulders sag slightly as she inclines her head forward with a bit of a sigh. She really hasn’t picked up on any jobs piquing her interest, and maybe if this gig pays as much as this guy implies, she’ll be able to get transport to a more interesting hub and find some better jobs to settle with for a stretch.

Besides, four years being exiled from Republic space isn’t _nothing_ . If the Republic truly does have little-to-no activity interacting with Telos, then maybe she’ll be fine to just do this job and leave. She’ll still be in the Outer Rim. Does it really make a difference? _Besides, what’ll they do if they find me? Exile me again?_ she thinks to herself with a bitterly amused scoff.

“Fine,” she says with a sigh, looking at the man tiredly. “When’s your ship leave?”

He looks a little surprised, but relieved. “It’s called the _Harbinger_ , docking bay eight, tonight at ten o’clock,” he says. “Wouldn’t you like… information on the job?”

“I don’t care, honestly,” she says, reaching up to adjust her ponytail before reshouldering her bag. “What the job is doesn’t matter too much as long as I get paid. I’ll get the information once we get there.”

“Oh- of course!” the representative says quickly, and he pulls out a datapad and begins tapping on it. “And your name, ma’am?” He gives her an odd look that she doesn’t bother to try looking into more carefully.

“Lora,” she says simply.

“Lora…?” he repeats, prompting her for a surname. When she quirks an eyebrow at him, he amends that he needs her full name for the purposes of payment. 

With another sigh, she bites the inside of her cheek and says, “Nattaj. And if your employer’s got a problem with it, they can say it to my face,” she warns evenly. Never know when trouble will show itself, especially in Republic space.

The man looks just worried enough to satisfy Lora, and he nods quickly, thanking her several times and agreeing to meet with her again later that evening aboard the Harbinger.  
  
Lora finally leaves him, and she decides to spend the next several hours burning credits in the local cantina, the headache from the night prior gently throbbing with familiarity as she idly wonders if agreeing to board this ship to Telos is really a good idea.

\---

_“Admiral Onasi? I’ve found her. Loryana Nattaj. She’s agreed to come aboard the_ Harbinger _under the guise of a freelance job on Telos.”_

_“Good work, Sergeant. Don’t let her know why we’re really bringing her here. Give her diplomatic passenger status, but no special treatment. We don’t want her getting suspicious. Just get her here as quickly and safely as possible, it is your top priority.”_

**Author's Note:**

> i love my exile!!! so much!!!! she becomes a drifter, someone who simply exists with no care if she lives or dies, during her exile, and i've really been thinking lately about how she even ends up aboard the harbinger going to telos voluntarily because she makes an avid point to stay the hell away from the jedi and any kind of republic space during her exile. she keeps her head down, not caring to listen to gossip or do anything that makes her noticable in the least. she drinks, she works hard, she blends in with other smugglers and hired hands, and she moves on. she exists.
> 
> so i wanted to write a lil thing to sort of flesh out how she gets to the harbinger, and i'm sorta writing more blips like.. going through the beginning of the game (for right now, at least, but who knows if i'll divulge into more of the game later LMAO) and writing down everything from lora's perspective, from her canon. maybe i'll add those to this??? but i might just make a new work specifically for game canon stuff.. hm... who knows!!
> 
> if you wanna talk about my exile or tell me about yours, please leave a comment and tell me about your exile!!!! I LOVE THE EXILE AND EVERYONE'S EXILES FASCINATE ME!!! let's POP OFF yall !!!


End file.
